Jobs preserved at Letterkenny

September 04, 1998|By DON AINES

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - The Defense Depot Maintenance Council confirmed an earlier recommendation to keep the bulk of the military's tactical missile maintenance - and hundreds of jobs - at Letterkenny Army Depot.

The decision, made Wednesday, will keep approximately 900 missile maintenance jobs at the depot, according to an announcement from U.S. Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa. Earlier this summer, the Army Materiel Command recommended the maintenance workload on 17 tactical missile systems stay at Letterkenny.

In August 1997, Lt. Gen. Dennis Benchoff, deputy commander of the Army Materiel Command, requested the Army study five options for the missile maintenance. One option would have transferred all the workload to Tobyhanna Army Depot in Scranton, Pa.

Defense Depot Maintenance Council Chairman Roger Kallock told Shuster on Thursday that the council selected the option to keep the work at Letterkenny,

Still to be decided is what will happen to the maintenance workload for the missile guidance and control systems. According to the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission's decision on Letterkenny, that work is supposed to be transferred to Tobyhanna.

"I want the employees at Letterkenny to know that I have not given up on the guidance and control work slated to go to Tobyhanna as a result of BRAC 95," Shuster said in a press release from his Washington, D.C., office.

"I have formally asked the Army to re-examine the costs of moving this work to Tobyhanna, and if it is determined it is more economically feasible to keep the work at Letterkenny, they should pursue actions to do so," Shuster said.

About 120 people are involved in guidance and control work at Letterkenny, depot spokesman Alan Loessy said in June.

|

|

|